Peace Corps Offers Life Experience

By Nancy K. Crevier

Home for her older sister’s wedding, Kendall Zimmerman cannot help but think about one of her first experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique, Africa. In the small town of Namaacha where she did 2½ months of training beginning in September 2006, the family with whom she lived invited her to attend a family wedding.

“Weddings there are really different. The ceremony lasted three days. On the first day, the bride’s family paid the dowry. I think that may have been the actual sealing of the vows, but I’m not sure,” recalled Kendall recently in a visit with The Bee.

“On the second day, we went up to the church for the presentation of gifts. I thought that maybe that’s when there would be a ceremony like here, but I guess it’s just to give presents. There was a lot of dancing and songs, lots of music,” she said.

The third day the party escalates, with a huge feast and celebration the entire day. In comparison, the fun-filled family event she had attended just outside of Zion National Park in Utah seemed pretty tame.

The 2001 graduate of Newtown High School received her degree in psychology and elementary education certification from Northeastern University in Boston in May 2006. She had first heard about Peace Corps as a college sophomore.

“I met a woman who had been in Peace Corps, and she raved about her experiences,” said Kendall. The seed was planted, and while it was not her only postgraduation plan, she applied during her senior year to the Peace Corps.

“I like to travel and have traveled a lot with my family,” said Kendall. “The Peace Corps seemed like an opportunity to meet people from other cultures and get a different perspective on the world. It seemed like something that would be really good for me to do, so I just did it.”

She was accepted into the Peace Corps in September 2006, and without a lot of information or even much of a packing list, she left that month for Mozambique. It was not the draw of money that convinced her to sign up for the two-year stint. Peace Corps volunteers receive only a monthly stipend for food and the cost of living.

“I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into,” said Kendall. She knew that the government agency provides assistance to developing countries around the world that want aid, and that help is offered in the form of education, health, and business, but beyond that she was not sure of her mission.

“Initially, I was going to be doing teacher training there, but I ended up being needed as a secondary English teacher,” Kendall said.

One of her biggest challenges in training and in the field has been communication. The national language of Mozambique is Portuguese, and many residents speak only that or a native dialect. Training offered her the rudiments of the language, but for Kendall, it has been a lot of “on the job” training.

“It was hard not being able to communicate, and the culture is very different. People there are not in such a rush to do things as we are in America, which can be good and bad. There’s less stress to life and people just go with the flow as it happens. But businesses and schools are not very well thought out or planned. It can be frustrating. But my family was great,” said Kendall.

Following her training, she found out on Thanksgiving 2006 that she had been assigned to the Mucoque Secondary School in Vilankulo, on the coast of the Indian Ocean. The village of about 55,000 people is primarily a fishing village and a few of the women sell vegetables or fabric wraps at the open air market twice a week in the center of town.

Despite the fact that her school, one of two secondary level schools in the town, is a brand new building erected by World Bank just two years ago and fairly well equipped, the attitude toward education is somewhat lackadaisical, said Kendall.

“The families aren’t really concerned if the kids attend school or not, so sometimes they are there and sometimes not. They don’t do homework and it is hard to get the class to pay attention a lot of the time. They just have a much more relaxed attitude.”

Unlike a lot of schools in Africa, her students actually have desks, said Kendall, and she has a blackboard on which to teach the lessons to her eight classes of nearly 60 students each. The facility also has computers, 40 of them, but they have never been used. Even though the school is located in the half of the town that does have electricity, school administrators have told Kendall that not enough electricity is available to hook up the computers. She suspects it is more the case that nobody has gotten around to it yet, or that the school is not set up to teach computer classes.

“One thing I’m hoping is that next year I can teach computer classes. We’re supposed to get a new electric company, so I don’t think they will be able to use the old excuse [of not generating enough electricity] anymore,” said Kendall.

A new electric company could also mean that the house in which Kendall lives would get electricity.

“I still have no electricity. I have a gas stove and I have water coming in from the school, and I even have hot water with the gas stove. I live by candlelight in Vilankulo. It’s kind of nice, though,” she said. “I go to bed when it’s dark and get up when it’s light.”

Her classes, set up by age, include students between the ages of 14 and 45, and do not start until the afternoon session at 12:30 pm. It is a real mix of levels, said Kendall. Along with conquering the language barrier, she has had to learn to pronounce names that are not at all like any she has encountered before. “I know about half of the names of my student now, but it’s hard. I have a group of about 60 kids that I’m in charge of, and I do know their names now.”

Coming up with projects that capture the attention of her students is challenging, said Kendall, but one project in particular has been a home run. “My students are pen pals with my mother’s eighth and ninth grade church group at Trinity in Newtown, and they just love it,” she said. African American hip-hop artists are also very popular with youngsters in her village. “They like seeing the successful black Americans,” she said. Like middle school students anywhere, she said that her students enjoy showing off in class, and particularly like donning sunglasses for an “urban” effect. “They even asked me to bring back like a dozen pair of sunglasses when I go back in January,” Kendall laughed.

By February 2007, Kendall was feeling more settled. Then Cyclone (Hurricane) Favio struck.

“I was evacuated by the Peace Corps to an inland city the day before, and everyone thought I was crazy. They just stayed. I guess they were used to it and didn’t expect it to be so bad,” Kendall said.

Although no deaths and few injuries were incurred, the hurricane devastated a huge part of Vilankulo. “When I came back, it was a mess,” said Kendall. Trees were down, houses had been demolished, and roofs were torn off. The twisted wreckage included the gym at her school, which had collapsed under the stress of high winds and heavy rains.

Her house survived unscathed, for which she was grateful

“I was scared to go back, but I was so impressed by the resiliency of the people there. They just went to work fixing the damage and went on with life. Doctors did come in and some outside help [arrived], but I don’t think the people there wait for the government to help,” Kendall said. The president of Mozambique, Armado Guebuza, came and spoke at her school as the town recovered, and praised the locals for taking matters into their own hands and taking care of things.

World Bank was quick to send in people to fix the school gymnasium, though, said Kendall, and it was not long before life seemed back to normal.

In August, the schools had a break when the countrywide census was undertaken, and she grabbed the opportunity to explore other parts of Mozambique. Traveling by “chappa,” buses that fit about “30 people plus a few chickens and goats,” she and a fellow Peace Corps friend went to other towns north of Vilankulo, staying with other volunteers along the way.

“We went to Gurue and hired a guide to take us up a beautiful mountain. We had to go to a woman who lives at the base of the mountain first to get permission. She was called the ‘Queen of the Mountain’ and we went through a ceremony to ensure a safe trip.” As an offering to the mountain, she and her friends left cans of soda to appease the mountain’s spirit.

“I didn’t have a lot of expectations going in, and my favorite part of the experience is going over to my students’ houses and seeing them outside of school. The families are really welcoming. The personal experiences are wonderful,” said Kendall.

She credits her parents, Carol and Frank Zimmerman, for encouraging herself, sister Kate, and brother Andrew, to take on new experiences. “My parents have always encouraged us to travel and see the world. They are behind us in whatever we want to do,” she said.

She has been happy to spend time the past few weeks with her family back in Newtown, and surprisingly, has found only the cold weather the most difficult adjustment.

“I think that the worlds [of Vilankulo and Newtown] are so different that it’s easy for me to separate the two experiences,” said Kendall.

She heads back to Mozambique on January 4, where she will remain until her service time is over in December 2008.

“I don’t know what comes next,” said Kendall. “I’d like to travel a bit more around Africa and maybe to India. It’s really up in the air.”

She looks forward to continuing her work, in the meantime. “If you try to make big changes, it is frustrating; but I do feel like I make progress on the individual level.”

Students at Mucoque Secondary School are required to provide their own notebooks and pencils, but not all families are able to do so. Other school supplies are limited. Donations of supplies are welcome, but shipping can be expensive. Those wishing to donate supplies can contact Kendall at kendallzimmerman@gmail.com or mail donations to Kendall Zimmerman, Vilankulo, Mozambique, Africa.